State officials scramble to grab attention in final stretch before Missouri election • Missouri Independent

With less than a week before Tuesday’s primary, state elected officials are doing everything they can to leverage their positions and make last-minute headlines.

On Thursday in Jefferson City, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft was the first to speak, holding a news conference where he announced he was suing President Joe Biden and 15 federal department heads over Implementing Regulation 2021 aimed at increasing the number of registered voters.

Ashcroft is locked in a bitter battle with Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe and state Sen. Bill Eigel for the Republican Party’s nomination for governor.

Two hours later, Attorney General Andrew Bailey and the man who put him in office, Gov. Mike Parson, held a joint news conference announcing a crackdown on unregulated hemp products legalized under federal agricultural laws governing hemp.

Bailey will face a serious opponent in the Republican primary, Will Scharf, who has raked in millions of dollars from national conservative groups.

And for state Treasurer Vivek Malek, a publicity opportunity came Wednesday in the form of new state money available to subsidize business loans through a bonded deposit program called MoBUCKS.

Malek is trying to maintain his position in the Republican primary against five opponents, three of whom are campaigning extensively.

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Ashcroft, an attorney, is representing himself in the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court for the Eastern District of Missouri. Other plaintiffs include Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston, McDonald County Clerk Kimberly Bell and St. Charles County Elections Director Kurt Bahr.

In it, they accuse the Biden administration of exceeding its legal authority in an executive order. As a result, the order states, “federal officials and agencies must use federal taxpayer dollars and resources to fund what is effectively a voter incentivization and ballot harvesting program that favors a select demographic of the electorate that favors President Biden and the Democratic Party (sic).”

St. Louis attorney Thor Hearne is providing free legal assistance in the case, Ashcroft said at a news conference.

The order didn’t generate much interest until this summer, when became the target of outrage from the Republican Party. Directs federal agencies to do everything they can to promote voter registration in their interactions with the public.

“It is our duty to ensure that registering to vote and the act of voting itself is simple and easy for all eligible persons,” the order reads.

Ashcroft said the lawsuit was filed now, rather than when the executive order was issued, because he believes the body of evidence shows the Biden administration is reluctant to provide information about how it is implementing the order.

Ashcroft could not say for sure whether his office had sought information from the Biden administration about how the order was being implemented in Missouri or how many times it had attempted to obtain such information.

“It’s something I’ve been following for years and we’ve been trying to get more information about it,” Ashcroft said. “We just filed now because we were finally ready and because we had to do it.”

Also attending Parson’s meeting with Bailey were agency leaders who will be responsible for implementing a new executive order banning the sale of any food products containing hemp-derived cannabinoids adulterated with a prohibited substance.

During the news conference, Parson held up several packages of products labeled as candy but containing THC derived from cannabis. Children are eating the THC-laced products and being hospitalized, Parson said, because of the deceptive packaging.

The state Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco Control will enforce the ordinance by threatening to revoke the liquor licenses of any retailer found to be carrying the products on its shelves.

The regulation will enter into force on 1 September.

Hemp and related products were legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, causing the market to rapidly expand.

“When the almighty dollar becomes more important to the people who sell these products than the lives of our children here in the state of Missouri, that should be a wake-up call for everyone,” Parson said.

Bailey said his office was investigating the sources of THC additives in the products and the investigation would continue. He had collected information about poisoning cases involving children, he said.

“We must end deceptive business practices that seek to profit from illegal substances over the well-being of children,” Bailey said. “These products represent an abusive market failure, and children of all ages are suffering.”

Malek did not hold a press conference, but used his social media accounts to promote the relaunch of the MoBUCKS program.

Loan program Closed in January when it reached the statutory limit of $800 million. The program works by pairing a deposit of government money with a loan, which is discounted because the lender pays the government below-market interest on its money.

Malek successfully lobbied lawmakers to increase the statutory allowance up to $1.2 billion during this year’s legislative session.

“MOBUCK$ is a safety valve against inflation, and I strongly encourage anyone interested in a lower-interest loan to meet with a local lender and discuss the steps necessary to apply,” Malek said in a press release.

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